Carlene Carter Quotes

Carlene Carter

Profession : Musician

Birth : September 26, 1955

My grandma passed in '78, and that's the year I started recording. It's also the year that my dad retired from his career. So it's funny how torches get passed on, and you feel a responsibility to be connected to the music that they did and try to carry it on in your own way.

Carlene Carter

If someone asked me to do something I didn't want to do or didn't think was right, I wouldn't do it.

Carlene Carter

I feel the audience are friends that have come to see us. That was always how we look on it in the Carter Family. I've never suffered stage fright.

Carlene Carter

I like things all shined up and rocking with hooky pop choruses.

Carlene Carter

My Smiths, my Carters, the Cashes - everybody embraced me and held my arms up when I couldn't do it myself.

Carlene Carter

A lot of people said I was a rebel. I wasn't.

Carlene Carter

I always knew I would make the record that I made in 'Carter Girl.'

Carlene Carter

If someone gets married at 15, they're either dumb or pregnant. I was both.

Carlene Carter

I always have to just be myself. Anything else, I'm not happy, and it comes out musically.

Carlene Carter

Grandma and Mama showed me that you always have to give as much as you can, no matter what.

Carlene Carter

Working with Mellencamp, I made new fans, people that may have never heard of me. They may have heard I was related to the Carter Family or Johnny Cash somehow, but what they got was pure Carlene.

Carlene Carter

You can have a big hit and not get rich.

Carlene Carter

Lots of girls marry at 16 in Tennessee.

Carlene Carter

It's all for a reason and all happened the way it was supposed to happen.

Carlene Carter

I like to do one thing at a time and do it to the best of my ability.

Carlene Carter

Everyone deals with loss. I'm no different, but we all find our ways of coming through things. Is it tough? Of course, but you find the strength to push on through.

Carlene Carter

I've always had wanderlust to try and do different things, but I always return to the music of the Carter family.

Carlene Carter

I was thinking about it: so many of my stories are about my family life, not about being related to a lot of famous people. That's my grandma, that's my mama, my daddy, my aunt, my uncle, my stepdaddy. I'd probably tell them even if they weren't well known.

Carlene Carter

When I first came out, country wouldn't touch me because I was way too rock, and rock wouldn't touch me because I was definitely country.

Carlene Carter

Sometimes, it's good to stick to your guns.

Carlene Carter